The Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise has had a lot of Abandon Shipping scenarios over the years. The series shows just how easily it can happen to an already established Official Couple:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
- While the canonical Mai/Zuko was already far from the most popular Zuko ship, in part thanks to the popular Zutara (Zuko/Katara) ship — as well as the Zukka (Zuko/Sokka) ship that emerged in the wake of the franchise's 2010s Newbie Boom — and because the character herself is somewhat divisive, it still had a big fanbase. However, some that were fond of it began to ditch it following the Smoke And Shadow graphic novel. Continuing on from the series and previous comics, the duo's relationship remained incredibly unstable, with the two failing to communicate, having endless fights, and constantly breaking up, turning them into a truly toxic relationship. Mai even delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech at one point, telling Zuko how miserable he makes her feel, something that some fans saw as Mai being a hypocrite who contributed just as much, if not more, to the failure of their relationship. While it still has fans, it lost a lot of them due to the comics.
- Some Ty Lee/Azula shippers jumped ship when Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search showed that Ty Lee wants nothing to do with Azula, implying she was never Azula's friend in the first place (or that whatever friendship they had has burned). Avatar: The Last Airbender - Smoke and Shadow doubled down on this, with Ty Lee still terrified that Azula is on the loose. This wasn't helped when series head writer Aaron Ehasz revealed that one of his ideas for a potential fourth season (whether one was truly considered depends on who you ask) would have followed the comics in this regard, with the only person who would willingly interact with Azula being Zuko.
The Legend of Korra
- The series might have set a record for turnaround time for a ship being created, then abandoned, and this was Preemptive Shipping before the first episode even aired no less. A promotional poster
for the show distributed at San Diego ComicCon 2011 featured Korra with an Earthbender boy and a Firebender boy. Naturally, some fans started shipping the two boys right away. Later, during the panel for the show, it was revealed that the boys (Bolin and Mako) are brothers, and everyone not into Incest Yay Shipping jumped ship. - When all that was known about Meelo was his name and nothing else, people thought he might be Korra's Love Interest. Needless to say, when he turned out to be a toddler, that thought died out completely.
- Tenzin and Korra. They were the first two named characters and were paired up almost immediately in a Mentor Ship... until it was found out that Tenzin was a married man in his fifties with three kids and a pregnant wife.
- Tenzin/Pema was shipped by nearly everyone until Lin's past relationship with Tenzin was revealed, which turned it into a polarizing Official Couple. This wasn't helped by Pema revealing that she actively pursued a relationship with Tenzin before he broke up with Lin, and played a role in breaking them up by confessing her love to him when their relationship was reaching a low point. As one fan said:
- They did it. They actually did it. Bryke killed the show's one otp.
- Amon/Tarrlok gained a small Mind Game Ship/Foe Yay Shipping following after Amon de-bends Tarrlok in a fairly Ho Yay-tastic scene, only to fall into this trope once it's revealed they're brothers, meaning that anyone who didn't like incest jumped ship, and resulting in a few Hilarious in Hindsight pieces of fanwork before that particular revelation.
- In Season 2, many shipped Bolin with Korra's cousin Eska due to promotional material. Then it turned out the relationship was abuse being played for laughs on Eska's side, leading many to jump ship, though others still held firm.
- In an instance of a later franchise installment retroactively doing this for a previous installment is Tokka (Toph/Sokka). When Toph's daughter Lin was revealed, with no father mentioned, a lot of people wanted it to be Sokka; however, when it came out that Lin used to date Tenzin (Sokka's nephew), most fans abandoned the idea. However, when it turned out that Toph had another daughter with a different unknown father, the idea picked up again, though others rejected the implication that Sokka would become a Disappeared Dad (since he's known to have lived into Korra's lifetime). It doesn't help that Suyin does bear some semblance to Sokka, though either her or Lin seem to know anything about their fathers.
- Similarly, some Sukka (Sokka and his canon girlfriend Suki) fans jumped ship because Suki was the only Gaang member not referenced in the series. A decent number of fans stood firm because the series never proved Sokka and Suki broke up, believing that she could just have been not mentioned rather than them breaking up for any number of reasons.
- The fanbase has a rather... belligerent relationship with the Makorra ship. When the show was prepping for its debut and the key details of the cast were revealed, they were the most popular ship by far. Zutara shippers from the original series, in particular, picked up the ship as a Spiritual Successor to the one they favoured. This lasted until about midway into Book 1 and beyond, even with the Love Triangle with these two and Asami Sato... but then when Mako started becoming dishonest about the fact that he'd cheated on Asami and tried to deflect blame, a number of fans slowly lost their taste for him (and ironically Asami, who was disliked instinctively by many, became more popular), which was not helped by the extremely vague break-up kiss they had in the season finale before Mako hooked up with Korra. Then Book 2 had pretty much all of the remaining fans turn off from Mako being with either girl; his relationship with Korra clearly wasn't working out, and so they break up and he ends up getting back together with Asami, until an amnesic Korra shows up in the aftermath of getting shipwrecked... and he gets back together with her, despite several of their friends being present and visibly urging him to tell her the truth, breaking Asami's heart once again and permanently killing the Masami ship in the process. The Book 2 finale killed the ship for good when Korra got her memory back and breaks up with him once more, deciding they are Better as Friends. While there remains some who do wish the pairing had worked out by the end, the airing of Books 3 and 4 saw the majority of the fanbase turn towards Korrasami (which ended up being dubbed as the NEW Zutara or Zutara 2.0) while most didn't want Mako with anyone anymore. As it turns out, this was deliberate — Word of Bryke has it that Makorra was only endgame for Book 1 and when they got renewed, they knew the couple was going to break up in Book 2, and Korrasami would be the canon endgame ship for both female characters.
- Bolin/Korra was one of the Top 3 ships in the fandom during Book 1, but dwindled astonishingly by Book 4. This is due to Bolin receiving other love interests, Korra not showing romantic interest in Bolin, and the fact that Bolin's crush on Korra was never even referenced after Book 1.
- An interesting example is Jinora/Skoochy. He's a very minor character who appeared in season one: a homeless, orphaned Artful Dodger who was paired with Jinora simply because he happened to be of similar age. The ship was popular until season three, when we meet Kai, a homeless, orphaned Artful Dodger Jinora's age whom she actually starts dating. Needless to say Skoochy no longer served a purpose.
- Iroh II/Asami, Iroh II/Bolin, and Tahno/Korra were all popular ships during Book 1, however it's almost impossible to find shippers of them anymore. This is due to Tahno disappearing from the series after Book 1, bar an unvoiced cameo in the series finale, and Iroh having his role drastically reduced. There is also a considerable age gap between Iroh II and Asami which unnerved some viewers. It didn't stop the showrunners for making jokes about them hooking up though.
